I remember deciding I was beautiful after a particularly rough day when I believed the world did not.

I remember seeing beauty in line for in-n-out when two girls with olive skin and light eyes walked over to the counter and asked for fries.

I remember realizing beauty when my best friend sat and talked with me for hours in-between the aisles of the local target.

I remember feeling beautiful when my date to the homecoming dance dropped his jaw and said it while looking into my eyes instead of at body.

I remember being beautiful when my mom took me in her arms and called me her child.

I remember when I tried to determine that I would not let myself be swayed into categories of what beauty should be and should not be, but growing older doesn’t seem to make it easier to grow wiser.

He told me he liked me even more when I made a reference to a metallica song and it made me blush.

Why? It’s not like I had learned it to impress him, or that the fact had been cool before he noticed it.

I feel it is easier to accept that you’re beautiful when you’re being told by someone else. But I know that I am beautiful because I decided I would make an effort to be, inside and maybe out– and sometimes that’s just the best you can do.

But sometimes I wonder: if I believe I am beautiful and the world does not, am I beautiful against the world or deluded?

Is the dog I pass on the street beautiful because it is innocent and does not know by our standards how to critique its owner’s casual-dog-walking-attire?

Are white supremacists beautiful for being alive, human, and passionate?

Were we beautiful when we declared war on the homes of children foreign to us in the name of honor and patriotism.

Are we still beautiful when we are privileged and educated enough to see the terrible realities of the world and still choose to sit and drink coffee? Is it wrong to enjoy coffee and privilege?

I wish that my biggest concern with beauty was about what I look like.